How to Find a Career You Love: Guide

Choosing a desirable career might take weeks, months, and sometimes years. It is a big milestone, and to achieve it, you must put in a lot of hard work and sacrifice. You might face many obstacles, and only braving them will help you identify a career path you will love and prosper in.
While all of this may sound poetic, it is true. Many end up at crossroads, struggling to figure out their career path. But some strategic planning and evaluation can go a long way.
Below are a few steps to help you choose your career path.

A Step-By-Step Guide to Finding a Career You Will Love

Step 1: Take a Self-assessment Test

A self-assessment test is one of the best ways to find answers to who you are, your unique personality traits, and other questions related to the career path that matches your personality. They help you understand yourself better to bring about positive development and changes in your life.

For instance, freelancing jobs in India have gained momentum in the last decade. It has become a fascinating profession for individuals who cannot fit into the mould of a 9 to 5 job. However, the only way to realise if you can be a freelancer is by identifying who you are, what makes you happy, and what you want from your career. These answers can be found through a self-assessment test.

Therefore, taking a self-assessment test is the first step in choosing the right career path.

How To Take a Self-Assessment Test?

You can refer to various online websites that conduct different self-assessment tests, take help from a career counsellor, or even take a test at home.

Irrespective of wherever you are taking the self-assessment test, there are certain evaluation aspects that will be common, like:

1. Your interests
2. Your skills
3. Your values
4. Your family and cultural influences
5. Your personality

Like a student who takes a career-oriented assessment test to identify what to study next, you can take the following self-assessment tests to find the right career path.

• Cognitive abilities test to identify your mathematical, verbal communication, reading, and other technical abilities.
• Skill-identifying test to analyse your skill sets, like communication, technical, intuitiveness, or any other skill that your job description demands.
• Personality test to understand different facets of your personality.
• Integrity tests to discover your unique personality traits like honesty, trustworthiness, and sincerity.

Step 2: Identify Your Must-Haves To Understand The Jobs You Can Pursue

In this step, you must identify your ideal career path’s essential requisites. Here are some of the must-haves while choosing a job:

• Salary
• Job prospectus
• Career opportunities
• Travel and other benefits
• Scope of growth
• Work environment and co-worker’s attitude and behaviour

Once you have determined them, it would help to dedicate time to look for positions you can take up.

Subsequently, search for advanced courses to help you gain a competitive advantage.

Pro-tip: The best way to excel in this step is by writing down the requisites of your ideal job. Letting it all out will help you focus and follow the right direction. You could even realise the need for advanced courses after graduation or secondary school that increase your chances of securing your dream job. 

Step 3: Research Potential Employers and Apply for Jobs

After understanding yourself and the kind of career that fits your requirements, it’s time to start looking for companies that match your expectations. Start with jobs that sound interesting or desirable to you. Filter out the job positions that don’t excite you.
Always read the description before applying for a role because the job title does not represent the job. In addition to that, you can follow these steps to choose the perfect employer.

• Use your network to scrape out more information about a company and their work culture.
• Listing your goals, ethics and values or penning down your action plan and considering it a road map to your success helps choose an employer that fits your requirement.
• Accept, learn, and don’t give up. There will be instances when you will not find the right work opportunities. However, don’t be deterred by failure and continue working around your strengths. It will significantly motivate you to perform better on the worst days.

Step 4: Get Training and Update Your Resume

After narrowing down the work opportunities that interest you, the next step is to check if you need additional training to apply for the position. This assessment will help you identify if you need extra resources or skills to perform your tasks efficiently.

Once you have determined that you are qualified for the job position, you can start preparing for the interview round. You can visit different online websites to brush up on your interview skills, revise common questions, and find ways to answer them perfectly.

Conclusion

Growth and learning are two cornerstones of a successful career, which can be achieved by taking different advanced certification courses. These learning programmes help expand your job responsibilities and take on more complex duties. Also, it helps to attain a competitive advantage over the rest during the appraisal period and get the desired promotion.

Emeritus India has many certification courses offered in association with renowned Indian institutes. Our learning programmes are developed by eminent faculty members and help equip you with advanced skills to upskill or take your career to new heights.